It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection. These are the times when maps fade, old landmarks crumble and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.

I wouldn’t necessarily say so. Some religions are irrational. But religious thought can have its own internally consistent rationality: witness deliberations about the number of rings of Hell, the existence of purgatory, the various ranks of angels and how many of them could fit on the head of a pin. The Vatican has constructed a vast rational and (often) internally consistent religious bureaucracy. The underpinnings of even internally consistent rational systems of religion are disconnected with observable reality. The antiempirical approach is I think common to religion.

We all want to believe we know the truth. Science and Religion both claim it, but they go about finding it in quite different ways. Religion is introspective, but often its tenets are dictated from authority. Dictated beliefs work particularly well for children, who can be imprinted for life with ideas that are unbelievable. Religion, as Republicans know, IS politically useful.

Science, on the other hand, painstakingly looks at evidence, discusses issues in peer-reviewed journals, tests repeatedly. The result is we have learned a lot in the last 2000 years. We are the first generations to see the earth photographs from space.

Now that we know that the earth is fragile, and that we have plundered it severely, we should be careful that it remains habitable. The ‘religious’ among us are mostly in denial and, with massive corporate backing, are keen to continue as usual.

Things that can’t last, won’t. We may go the way of the dinosaurs if we don’t grow up and face facts.

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